Against the Giants: The Liberation of Geoff (2e)

A ravaged land. . . . Villains that really are larger than life. . . . A time for heroes. . . .

A decade ago, the land of Geoff was overrun by a horde of giants, ogres, and evil humanoids, its people either slain, enslaved, or driven into exile. Now at last the tide has turned.

Against the Giants features: The full text of three classic adventures by Gary Gygax:

G1: Steading of the Hill Giant Chief

G2: The Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl

G3: Hall of the Fire Giant King

Details on 18 new encounter sites in the war-torn land of Geoff, linked together to form a grand campaign.

Dozens of hours of gameplay as the heroes struggle to free and entire country from the grasp of giant overlords.

An epic adventure for characters of all levels.

Product History

Against the Giants: The Liberation of Geoff (1999), by Sean K Reynolds, is a Silver Anniversary adventure for AD&D 2e. It was published in August 1999.

Origins (I): Continuing the Silver Anniversary.Against the Giants: The Liberation of Geoff (1999) was one of three Silver Anniversary releases released at the 1999 Gen Con Game Fair. It was published alongside the Silver Anniversary TSR Collector's Edition (1999) and the Ravenloft Silver Anniversary Edition (1999), though the latter was for RPGA members only!

Though it's not obvious from the name, Against the Giants is also one of the six Return adventures, which acted as sequels to various classic D&D adventures. They were a centerpiece of the Silver Anniversary releases, but they actually began a year earlier with Return to the Tomb of Horrors (1998) and continued into the 3e era (2000-2007) with Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil (2001).

Origins (II): The Return of the Giants. The original giants adventures, G1: "Steading of the Hill Giant Chief" (1978), G2: "The Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl" (1978), and G3: "Hall of the Fire Giant King" (1978) were the first official adventures for D&D, published at Origins '78. They'd been frequently reprinted in the AD&D 1e era (1977-1988), first as G-1-2-3: "Against the Giants" (1981), then as part of GDQ1-7: Queen of the Spiders (1986). Thirteen years later, the industry had matured, and the Giants adventures were old enough to drink, so Wizards celebrated that with an update and expansion of the classic adventures.

What a Difference an Edition Makes.Against the Giants follows the same model as Return to the Tomb of Horrors: it includes the full contents of the original adventures, updated to AD&D 2e, then it presents a complete sequel. The sequel is about the liberation of Geoff from the giants, depicting many new adventure sites. These new adventure locales even offer three direct sequels to the original adventures: G4: Mount Rungnirheim, another frost giant lair; G5: Castle Thrasmotnir, another fire giant lair; and G6: Cloud Islands of the Sakhut, a cloud giant lair. Stone giants continue to get no love.

Despite their inclusion, the original adventures aren't well integrated into the new book. It suggests that they could be run as a prequel, occurring over a decade earlier; or they could be used as the climax of the liberation plotline.

About the Media Tie-In. The novel Against the Giants (1999), by Ru Emerson, slightly preceded this adventure module. It was the first of a series of six Greyhawk Classics books. The novel closely follows the events of the original giants adventures, not the later liberation.

About the Promo Tie-In. Like most of the D&D supplements from this era, there was an Adventurer's Guild tie-in. "Emissaries", by John Rateliff, was part of Series Seven (July - September 1999).

Adventure Styles: Locale-Based Adventures. The new adventures in the "Liberation of Geoff" section are all locale-based adventures scattered across the countryside. Some are full dungeon crawls, some are simple sites, and others are towns or villages.

Eras of Greyhawk: 576-580, 591 CY. This adventure notes that the original Giants adventures are officially set in CY 576-580, while the "Liberation" adventure is set in the modern day, CY 591.

However, it also introduces considerable confusion to those clear dates. By suggesting that the original Giants adventures could be run as the climax of the adventure, it offers 591 CY as alternative date for them. The novel makes things even worse, because it sets the original Giants adventures in CY 585.

Exploring Greyhawk: Geoff.Against the Giants offers the best ever description of the nation of Geoff, including beautiful maps and details on sixteen towns and forts scattered across the countryside.

Monsters of Note: Giants. Clearly, this adventure is all about giants. It includes new rules for fighting and playing giants and also introduces the horag, a half-giant, half-ogre race. It even has lists of giant names!

Future History. Giants have continued to be a crucial element of D&D adventures. Two updates of the original "Against the Giants" adventures occur in Dungeon #197 (December 2011) through Dungeon #200 (March 2012), which revise the original adventures for D&D 4e (2008) with a stone giant addition, and in Tales from the Yawning Portal (2017), which updates the adventures for D&D 5e (2014).

NPCs of Note. The original Giants adventures featured pregenerated characters with unlikely names. Some of them are back here as "the band who defeated the last giant invasion years ago". Faffle has gone missing; Flerd leads the resistance; Fonkin is a filial footnote; and Gleep has become a full encounter.

About the Creators. Reynolds was influential in Greyhawk in the late '90s. He wrote two of the Lost Tombs and would go on to author the well-received The Scarlet Brotherhood (1999).

About the Product Historian

The history of this product was researched and written by Shannon Appelcline, the editor-in-chief of RPGnet and the author of Designers & Dragons - a history of the roleplaying industry told one company at a time. Please feel free to mail corrections, comments, and additions to shannon.appelcline@gmail.com.

Let's see. It'ss a classic, it's massive (Giant more like it), and it's one of my favorite settings. So, when it came out in PDF I had to have it. Not too much in the way of conversion to 3.5 compared to some of the older products (that use monsters [...]

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